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Latest pics from my cameraphones | ||
 December 29 large Christmas Dinner As always, my parents put together a feast. As always, I ate a lot! |  December 26 large Mice A strange thing happens when chilli cheese comes close to me: it starts disappearing, and fast! I blame the mice... |  December 26 large White Christmas I'm back home for Christmas, and we've have snow on the ground, as well as flurries all afternoon. |
 December 19 large O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree The Girl and I put our festive efforts together and, after hauling a 7 foot tall tree from Leith Walk on my shoulder, this is the end result. It totally rocks! |  December 16 large Nice hat Pete steals his son's own hat ... which no longer fits quite like it did. |  December 16 large Raj We had a small group dinner at the Raj on the Shore last night. Quality food, and excellent beer (Tikka Gold). We ended the night at the Lighthouse, where they are offering pole dancing classes. Classy. Apparently the place was just firebombed, too. |
 December 10 large 2Mb ADSL Three years ago, almost to the day (19th December), I had ADSL installed. That 512k service has handled my home data needs admirably since, but recently there was a nagging feeling in my mind that I just wasn't keeping up. Last week the connection was upgraded to 1Mb, only for BT, and Zen, to announce 2Mb availability. This morning that need speedbump occurred. Nice. At 45 pounds a month, it is actually less than I was paying all that time ago for a slower connection. Technology,eh... |  December 3 large Got Wireless? Netgear supplies me! |  November 25 large Fruit Salad The Girl made me a mean fruit salad. Deee-licious! |
 November 25 large Rogue Closed My favourite restaurant in Edinburgh, Rogue, has closed its doors. For a while not it had been looking slightly perilous, but it seems takings weren't staying up. It is a huge shame, but the location on Morrison Street just wasn't great. Passing trade must have been minimal, and you couldn't really see it from the street if you were walking or driving past. I'm sure that David Ramsden will be back with something new soon, but I doubt it will be as good value, service and quality as Rogue. Goodbye. |  November 18 large Mighty Indian Last night after my first visit to the gym in a looong time, I was mighty hungry, so The Girl and I went to the Kalpna (vegetarian Indian restaurant) for dinner. We both had Thaali's, which were excellent. You just can't beat delicious food! |  November 15 large Confluence Rich and I giving it some confluence point action. |
 November 14 large Kite Flying, Finally After several unsuccessful attempts to flnd wind for kite-flying, the mini kite took off today. Very cool indeed. |  November 14 large Russians Welcome The traditional breakfast of champions - a Russian Shandy (Stella & Smirnoff Ice). |  November 13 large Sunset The room from my bedroom. |
 November 12 large Nature Fridge The weather has taken a slight turn, with some decent flurries of snow, but that does mean we can store the beer outside. Please note the soft drinks are for mixers only! ;-) |  November 12 large Tesco Delivers Our Tesco delivery has successfully arrived! |  November 11 large Any Port In A Storm Always good to be prepared! |
 November 11 large I Am Here This is our 2004 group holiday location (check gallery for Taynish & JamsBirthday for previous years) at Muckrach Castle. |  November 10 large Nathan Nathan, Pete & Blaise's son, looking relaxed as he gets to know the group ahead of the long weekend away. |  November 1 large Anstruther By Night Looking at the quality fish and chip shop over the harbour. At night. ;-) |
 October 28 large Cheap Electonics Not so long ago I remember having to save up for items like this. A DVD player for 30 quid is cheaper than many of the discs to be played on it! Thanks to standards like SCART, the output quality should be as good as the next player, at a fraction of the cost. |  October 27 large Boots Do Cameraphone Postcards ... Kind Of When Boots introduced Kodak self-print machines to their stores, I suggested they were missing a trick by not allowing people to create postcards to send home with the recent snap as the image on the front. I went as far as contacting Boots. Today when I was in Boots, printing off some photos to brighten up my desk (deskart? quickphotos? there must be a catchy title for that), I spotted these. Not quite what I had in mind, but pretty cool all the same. You print your photo, and then stick it inside the plastic pouch, seal it, write on it and send it. My test postcard worked perfectly. Now it's time to get in touch with Boots and see what my cut is for identifying a space in the market. ;-) |  October 26 large Sunset View 2 The cloud colours were beautiful too. This is looking towards the Forth bridges from the walkway. A highly recommended visit. Just jump on a 24 or 41 Lothian bus and you'll be there in 30 minutes from the city centre. |
 October 26 large Sunset View 1 Looking back towards the mainland from the walkway. The view was incredible, and it genuinely felt great to be out in the fresh air, hearing birds sing. The roar of aeroplanes overheard only slightly dulled the enjoyment! |  October 26 large Crammond Island As luck had it, the timing of our visit to Crammond Island was perfect. The tide was almost at the low point, so we could walk across to Crammond Island. |  October 24 large Goodbye Signature Today I did my first ever authorisation by PIN. Not entirely sold on how this is much more secure than signature, though. |
 October 22 large Head Wetting Wetting the head of the baby with Neil & the boys. More quality cigars! |  October 19 large More Cigars Cigars cos it's ... Saturday. Proper lighter is required, as demonstrated by Jams! |  October 5 large Champagne Tasting Allan and I enjoying some Champagne samples at the Mercier Champagne house. |
 October 5 large Champagne My entire family is in Champagne for my mum's birthday. Weather is beautiful! |  September 29 large Cigars For A Reason Today, 28th September @ 9.28am(good symmetry), Pete & Blaise had their first child. It wasn't all smooth sailing, but both mother & child are doing well. Us boys had beer, fine cigars (spiked, no cutters required; highly recomended) & pizza to celebrate! |  September 28 large 3rd Birthday Robbie On Saturday my Godson had his third birthday party (today is his real birthday), and got covered in chocolate. Here he is playing with a flock of balloons that were filling the living room. All five adults involved were exhausted after just an hour of playing. Robbie, however, remained full of energy! |
 September 28 large Robbie This was taken last Wednesday, when I was looking after Robbie for a few hours. |  September 20 large Crazy Razor When I went to buy a new razor, I picked up a standard one, then noticed this crazy new one, a Gillette M3Power. Being a sucker for all things new, I grabbed it. Only once I left and realised I'd spent a tenner on a new razor did a friend point out that it was battery powered. Apparently the new razor sends micro-pulses to the blades to lift hair up and away, giving a smoother, better shave. Why it vibrates so much, then, is a mystery. From my two tests, I can notice absolutely zero difference in terms of closeness of shave between this new razor and my last razor (Gillette Mach3 Turbo). Neither did my face feel massaged after use. I did, however, manage to turn it off a few times whilst shaving up the way. It's an interesting product though. Without doubt, the vibrating function is ... going to appeal to women for fairly obvious reasons (I'm just pointing out the facts here!). Given that it's a feminine-ish green colour, I'm sure this was not at all lost on Gillette! |  September 16 large Happy 1st Birthday Today Max, my Godson's brother, is one year old. I remember the day he came home from hospital... Happy birthday, Max, and congratulations to Polly and John for making it through an entire year with two little monsters. |
 September 16 large Robbie Today was the first time I'd seen my Godson in a while. Wow, how fast kids grow! |  September 13 large Daisy On Saturday afternoon I zoomed down to Carlisle for a small family get-together. This is my cousin David and his gorgeous daughter Daisy. |  September 13 large Noo Shooz Somewhere I read that running shoes should be replaced after 400-450 miles. My original pair must be heading that way, so I decided now was the time to get some fresh treads. The good news is that my old shoes are actually still in good shape and don't have to be replaced yet, but I got a fresh set for Berlin. |
 September 7 large Z1010 The Sony Ericsson Z1010 3G phone lives! This isn't mine, but I'm working on it. |  September 6 large Tao Drummers These dudes I caught at the venue Christie was running this year during the Fringe. It was the first time they were outside their native Japan, and they were really good indeed. |  August 23 large Amusing When I was running this morning, I saw this sign which brightened my day. |
 August 22 large Nice Building A few times I've seen this building, on Columbus and Broadway(?) and I finally got a nice picture of it. |  August 22 large Lights of San Francisco The bright night lights of San Francisco, from my Nokia 6600. |  August 22 large Distracted By Shiny Things Russ, Mike's girlfriend (sorry, I forgot your name...), Mike, Romain and I playing with new toys at the BAMF today. This was taken with the megapixel camera on a Bill's 7610, a phone I really liked the feel of. |
 August 22 large Bay Area Mobility Forum As my great luck had it, today was the inaugural event of the Bay Area Mobility Forum. I caught up with Russ for food and now I'm sitting beside Eric Lin of The Feature & Engadget listening to Bill Day. All good. |  August 17 large Burrito Bonanza One of the biggest things Edinburgh is lacking is a quality burrito place. In fact, even any burrito place would be a step forward. Being in California, there are plenty of opportunities to sample some of the finest. This was my lunch today, a Super Chicken Burrito, and it was! |  August 17 large Santa Cruz On Saturday I went to Santa Cruz and saw some brilliant kite-surfing. More photos to come from my real camera, but here's a taster. I'm thinking I may give it a shot next week when I'm on holiday! |
 August 17 large Friday Night on 101 Friday at 6.30pm, and the traffic on 101 north is at a standstill... | ![<strong>Ready for the Marathon</strong><br />My San Francisco Marathon number. Pre-race prep complete. [Posted
slightly later due to connectivity issues. :-( ]](https://martinlittle.com/gallery/2004/latest/large/47060083.jpg) August 2 large Ready for the Marathon My San Francisco Marathon number. Pre-race prep complete. [Posted slightly later due to connectivity issues. :-( ] |  July 29 large Corporate Sponsorship When I was getting my lunch today I spotted this 'meal alternative nutrition bar'. Apparently it is 'great tasting'. I'll let you know once I've built up enough energy to eat something that is only going to give me 2 carbs back! Don't get concerned that I've moved over to some wack diet, though. Hearty food consumption is my mainstay. :-) |
 July 25 large Flying Over Santa Cruz This was also taken from my mobile, but I was having too much fun to blog it from the air. This is looking down to Santa Cruz. |  July 25 large California Flyin' Blogging from 3000 feet in a Cessna flown by Martin Lorch. Beautiful! |  July 22 large Wheels Here's my car. It looks like it's a Chevy Classic. Does the job. :-D |
 July 22 large London City Airport Second in a very occasional series when I get up early: this is London City Airport at 5.30am this morning. |  July 22 large Ronnie Scott's At Ronnie Scott's hearing some quality jazz. For some reason there is no smoking tonight - possibly due to the main act being a vocalist. |  July 19 large Er-lee This is what Waverley Station in Edinburgh looks like at 6.15am, right after you find out that the 6.10am train is a figment of the Network Rail Web site. Time to find a comfy spot for 45 minutes! Zzzz... |
 July 13 large Kodak Printmachine At lunchtime I dragged Neil & Mahyad along to test the Kodak digital photo print machine in Boots. The machine worked well -- I fired over the pictures I wanted to print from my phone by Bluetooth absolutely seamlessly (not often you hear that about Bluetooth, unfortunately), but there were also card reader slots for six or seven flavours and an IR interface. It was necessary to make a few small adjustments to have the pictures printed on 4" x 6" paper, but nothing too difficult; I'm certain my parents could use it. The final result is decent enough to sit on my desk. Each photo cost 49p, which would make it expensive to do in bulk, but for a few odd pictures to send to relatives without computer access, it's got to be a winner. Kodak and Boots seem to be missing one killer application though -- postcards! Why don't they let you take a photo with your phone and have it printed on to something slightly stiffer than photographic paper, so that it can be sent to friends around the world. They could even do a roaring trade in stamps too. Overall, I'm impressed with both my phone and the service. These machines are meant to be in Boots stores up and down the UK. The one I tried was in the Shandwick Place branch in Edinburgh, in case you're desperate to try it now. If it asks for a password, try using 2004. According to the lady at the till, the machine has been doing brisk business since it was installed. |  July 8 large Arthur I dragged my family to the top of Arthur's Seat. Windy! |  July 8 large J. K. Rowling Degree My sister has just collected her degree (woohoo!) and now J. K. Rowling is getting an honourary degree. My sister's pics were all taken with my IXUS for zoom purposes. |
 July 3 large Another New Subway Subway are pushing out of town! Bruntsfield is to be the next location... |  June 25 large Finally My real, grown-up driving licence arrived today. I'm still swithering about what to do in terms of wheels, but it feels good to have the pink plastic in my hand(!). |  June 25 large Old Tech, New Life Rich was kind enough to donate this pre-loved old-school modem to let me get my Godson online. Many years ago (1996?) I remember travelling far with Rich to buy this device, and it costing a good amount of cash, too. The cool thing is that it's still going strong. |
 June 24 large Edinburgh Marathon Yesterday was the marathon. I completed my stage (the first) in 48minutes and somehow found the next runner in the mass of others. Our team clock time was 3.56, but it certainly took over 6 minutes to cross the start line, so I'm taking 3.50. |  June 23 large Who Broke The Weather Machine? The weather here hasn't been too bad of late, so I was not impressed to see the rain pouring down and howling winds this morning. Please can we go back to the nice summer weather? |  June 22 large Shortest Night 2.30am on the shortest night of the year. Beautiful. |
 June 19 large Muulti-Beer A 'few quiet beers' with Neil & Malcy. |  June 18 large 3G Take Two I just realised I've been 3G-enabled for over a year. Orange (and Vodafone) are about to launch their offerings, and thankfully someone hit them with the cluestick, and mobile DATA (hello, Three) is top of the bill. I'm testing the Orange card from Monday. Watch this space for more thoughts! | June 15 large Edinburgh Marathon Sunday was the marathon. I completed my stage (the first) in 48minutes and somehow found the next runner in the mass of others. Our team clock time was 3.56, but it certainly took over 6 minutes to cross the start line, so I'm taking 3.50. |
 June 11 large Bike Lock Returned Probably three years ago I last used this lock, when I cycled to work. Each night I left the lock at work as my bike stays in my flat. Then we moved office and I stopped biking and never needed the lock. Today I went back to the old office and, much to my delight, found my perfectly working lock still there! I wasn't going to post the picture, but Neil said "I bet you think that validates your way of life" which made me laugh as it kind of does! |  June 11 large Torrential Rain Torrential rain and a thunderstorm just as I finally managed to attempt escaping from work. Typical! |  June 10 large Max Due to a minor medical emergency, I have been entrusted with Mr Max for a short time. He is now just pre-crawling... |
 June 8 large Following The Crowd There is a big Citrix conference on at the EICC just now. They were all leaving with their matching backpacks as I was heading up the road, looking very much like a school party. |  May 27 large Pret Goes Open Source? Was coerced into buying lunch at Pret A Manger today, and noticed they have sandwich recipes on the container. Are they taking sandwich making open source? ;-) |  May 25 large Hair Style On the bus home I saw this boy with the coolest hair this side of 2004. |
 May 22 large MSP Baker My friend Richard Baker MSP (on the right) being interviewed on Newsnight Scotland. |  May 10 large Doing The Dew A kind colleague over from the States brought me some Mountain Dew. Ideal for a sunny day like today! |  May 9 large Running Vest I now have my very own running vest, ready for some marathon wearing ... I hope! |
 May 8 large Bagels My local Safeway finally got a clue and sorted out the onion bagel situation, after a prolonged absence. They've even got 'everything' bagels, which are tasty too. Anyone know where to get fresh bagels in Edinburgh? I miss London for that! |  May 3 large Quiet Duo It looks like Duo, the business-class Easyjet, has gone bust. The Privilege Lounge looks weirdly empty. |  May 2 large Iain Married |
 May 1 large Early Morning Stella After getting to the airport over an hour(!!!) before my flight, I rewarded myself with a Stella that tasted even better due to it being before midday. |  April 29 large Pay More Royal Bank employees picket outside the EICC. |  April 26 large Garmin Forerunner 201 I probably bought this two weeks ago, but never got round to blogging it. This is after my Sunday run. |
 April 25 large Birthday Card My sister is the Queen of quality cards, although she does have the added benefit of working in a card shop. My birthday card from her says: If technology doesnt seem like magic its probably obsolete. How very true! |  April 20 large Beer Heffe with Borno. |  April 19 large Frankfurt 2 ... and looking straight out. |
 April 19 large Frankfurt 1 The view from my hotel room looking back to the city and our offices... |  April 18 large Robbie My Godson is growing up quickly! |  April 11 large Phone Museum Amusing poster outside the museum. |
 April 11 large Birthday Lunch Team lunch for my dad at the Tower restaurant. |  April 10 large Food Construction Ingredients for a proper bad-boy chilli! |  April 9 large Oklahoma! Watching/listening to a friend at Church Hill Theatre in a production of Oklahoma! Sold out every night, so big things are expected. |
 April 7 large Fedora Update During the update on Sunday. |  April 7 large John's Computer John's neat computer, as compared to my P800 phone. Very smart indeed! | April 7 large |
 March 30 large Box Updated My Freeview box has been updated, and I'm all set for the TopUp TV launch tomorrow. I simply can't wait to ... stop hearing Richard Brier's voice telling me how great it is going to be. I was very impressed with the 50Hz anti-flicker feature on my P900. Seems to work a treat. |  March 27 large TopUp TV I've decided to take a foray into pay TV services. It kicks off on the 31st of March. |  March 25 large Gum Old look vs new look Wrigleys peppermint gum. I like the new. |
 March 19 large Lyon Now in Lyon, taking in some sights before my flight. This is taken from the Basilique. |  March 17 large Hot Snow Another great boarding day - 20C, blue skies and good snow. |  March 13 large Gite We've all (9) off us made it to our gite. Quality farm-based food ... and smells. Snow has fallen pretty heavily since we got here at 7.30pm, making our drive to the slopes tomorrow challenging. Bring it on! |
 March 13 large Mobistore :-) |  March 12 large Waiting I thankfully made it to the airport, despite a bit of a late start. House-sitter is set (thanks Tania!) and I'm as ready as I'm going to be for some snow fun. |  March 12 large Packing At speed! |
 March 6 large New! Smaller! The Scotsman tries compact format. | BT.jpg) March 5 large Surf Here Apparently you can surf via this phonebox at Haymarket in Edinburgh. We tried to test, but the area is already bathed in WiFi from a hotel, Starbucks & 2 pubs. Pic taken with a 6600. |  March 2 large New Boots :-) |
 March 1 large Toast Up New toaster in action. |  February 29 large Sunday Sunshine The view from my living room. Glorious! |  February 22 large Magic Paint One last piece of painting in my kitchen! I'm using magic paint that goes on pink, but dries white (hopefully!). |
 February 18 large Beau-ti-ful It is gorgeous in Edinburgh today. Winter seems like so long ago. |  February 18 large When Is A Fishtank Not A Fishtank? When it is an LCD screen of course! |  February 10 large Champagne At crazy Charles Heidsieck organised Champagne dinner. The 96 is so much nicer than the 98! |
 February 8 large Refurb The Orange shop on Princes St is being refurbished at present, ahead of Orange kicking off 3G trials (according to news on the unofficial wires ;-) ). |  January 23 large Lindsay Visiting the castle. |  January 22 large Ferguson The back of the Man United manager. Really. At the airport. |
 January 21 large Link Sending By Mum I guess this is how people used to send liks. Somehow my mum is not a big email user. |  January 21 large Drink My new favourite (non-alcoholic) drink is ... Safeway Orange & Raspberry Crush. Mmm-mmm! |  January 18 large Shanghai Bund by night |
 January 18 large RSS On My SliMP3 I have finally kicked my SliMP3 into action, thanks to some encouragement from Jams. The new server software seems like a big step forward. This cool plugin lets me read RSS on my SliMP3. Very nice! |  January 16 large Beeeers Met Viv for food, then bumped into some randoms for beer. Hello Malkie! |  January 14 large Rocks At the b-ball. |
 January 13 large Sorted For Quality Beer My friend Scott at Lupe Pintos has managed to sort me out with my favourite beer, in exchange for some computer fixing. Super word! They've actually got the full Anchor range in stock just now, so go and check them out! |  January 11 large Kermeister Happy Birthday to Ker! |  January 5 large Tree Deconstructed Goodbye 2003 tree. Thank you for looking so great. |
 January 5 large New Subway Opening at Tollcross Real Soon Now. |  January 4 large Mighty G Sandy gave me Guinness slippers for Christmas. In case you need a handy hint to remember what I drink... | |